What Are You Looking For?

What really matters to you?  What makes you happy?  When do you feel totally satisfied?  What things turn your life around?

The world wants us to focus on questions like these.  If you only do this or only have that, then you will find true satisfaction in life.  You have to find your own destiny.  It’s up to you to make things happen in your life and to help yourself feel good.  

These statements, however, are all fallacies in God’s eyes.  It is not up to us to determine what is best, only God knows what that truly is.  True wholeness and satisfaction are a gift from Him.

Yet we keep searching.  We look for hope and peace in the wrong places.  We get caught up in situations that fail us as we valiantly try to fill those holes in our lives with unsatisfactory things.  

What is our typical mode of operating?  We often get going on a plan and then ask God to bless it and make it come to fruition.  Instead, what we should be doing is looking for God’s plan for our lives and ask Him to mold us to follow in His ways.  

Sure, it is good to have hopes and dreams.  God designed us that way.  What He doesn’t want to see is for us to go randomly in our own direction without any regard for what He knows is best for us.  Think about how God might work through your dreams to align them to His master plan for your life and through that find satisfaction and hope.   

I know when I go barrelling ahead on my own with disregard for God’s purpose and direction for my life, I usually end up flat on my face.  When I let go of the reins and let God lead, I am blessed and amazing things happen in my life.

I remember being a young parent with a busy household.  Our church had many opportunities and needs for people to volunteer their time.  These were all important tasks and needful for the church to function well.  I took on a number of positions or projects even though it was a strain with my young children.  

What I didn’t consider is that, while a task might be important in the work of the church, unless God wants to place me there, I shouldn’t be going in that direction.  I just figured that surely God wants me to serve Him in His church and so I went ahead without much regard for His plan for my life.

I ended up being quite stressed at times, with multiple demands pressing in on my life.  For a time, I suffered with physical ailments, including a nasty case of TMJ.  Why did I put myself through all that? 

It would have been far better if I had prayerfully considered the various opportunities presented to me and asked God to show me where I could be most useful, but still be the wife and mother I needed to be.  

When I look back on those days I wonder what I was truly looking for.  In some ways I needed something outside caring for my children, which is fine to a point.  Why did I choose to do so much?  Did I like the feeling of importance all these roles gave me?  Maybe.  

I don’t have any firm answers, but it gets me thinking about my life today.  What am I truly looking for?  

God has put me in a place right now where I have no control.  I have to trust in Him.  My school board will place me in whatever opening they happen to have in fall.  I cannot choose the place or do anything to secure a particular teaching position.  

It seems that I need the lesson – again – that I can’t make my plans and expect God to fulfill them or bless them.  I need to work within His plans for me and ask Him to help me bear fruit wherever He plants me.

What are you looking for today?  The answers you seek are in God’s hands.  Draw close to Him and He will show you the way.